Mostly Links – 28 April 2011

So, if you haven’t got an invitation to the wedding, you’ll be wanting to see a movie this weekend, right? Disney’s Marvel imprint has obliged by opening Kenneth Branagh’s Thor on both sides of the Atlantic, to overwhelmingly positive reviews. I liked the trailer. Even Natalie Portman is good in it, although I believe that’s just her head grafted – by the magic of CGI – onto an actor’s body.

So, yeah, you should see Thor, probably. I don’t have shares in Disney, honest. Also, if everyone goes it will really piss off some crazy racists who are upset by Idris Elba’s presence on, like, the comic-book planet Asgard, or something, the fucking idiots.

Make it a double bill! If you’re in the UK, maybe the restored, reissued Battleship Potemkin would fill out that double bill nicely.

I don’t know. I mean it looks all right, but maybe I’ll wait for Peter Berg’s Battleships. Yes! That’s a real thing! Based on the game!

American filmgoers (or those lucky enough to live near an arthouse in a big city) could fill that double bill with The Arbor this weekend. Clio Barnard’s film, which has been hoovering up awards at festivals, is a tricksy documentary about the difficult lives of playwright Andrea Dunbar (probably best known for Alan Clarke’s adaptation of Rita, Sue & Bob Too) and her daughter Lorraine. Melissa Anderson’s piece for Artforum might be considered to contain spoilers. This interview with Barnard is also interesting.

Londoners who scorn both the royal wedding and Thor might want to take in one or both of the two film festivals currently in town. I’ve already seen the really rather good One Hundred Mornings at Sci-Fi London, and am looking forward to James Gunn’s Super on Monday. At the East End Film Festival, you could catch the restoration of Taxi Driver (which we will cover when it gets a release next month), but you’ve missed The Libertines: There Are No Innocent Bystanders. Shame. On Monday, everything is free – which is pretty cool.

In other stuff:

This is fun. PT Anderson in conversation with Lars von Trier. My favourite bit? Where Lars identifies the bits that Stanley Kubrick could have cut to make Barry Lyndon shorter. (Yes, by the way, I am consumed with unholy excitement about the forthcoming Barry Lyndon Blu-Ray, thanks for asking).

Some untimely deaths to note in the film and TV world this week (you know, I kind of don’t want to do this every week, it’s too sad). MUBI does an admirable job of collecting tributes to Restrepo co-director Tim Hetherington and Truffaut muse Marie-France Pisier. The BBC’s Newsround lets the kids who loved her pay tribute to Doctor Who’s Sarah Jane, Elisabeth Sladen.

We’ll be back on Tuesday, with more on Thor, always assuming that the legal union of Wills and Kate isn’t, in fact, the precursor to a real life equivalent of the apocalyptic dragon-birthing sex-rite The Fuckening from Your Highness (yeah, yeah; half of you are going to be pretending you loved it all along in a couple of years), which will usher in an age of unspeakable occult evil.